MICHAEL E. BROWN

Michael (Mike) E. Brown
Trans-Neptunian objects discovered: 14
(50000) Quaoar	June 4, 2002
	November 3, 2002
(90377) Sedna	November 14, 2003
(90482) Orcus	February 17, 2004
	May 17, 2002
	July 26, 2003
	September 22, 2004
	October 3, 2004
	December 18, 2001
	December 20, 2001
	December 28 2004
	March 31 2005
Eris	January 8 2005
Dysnomia	September 10 2005
# with Chad Trujillo# with David L. Rabinowitz# with Henry G. Roe# with Kristina M. Barkume# with Glenn Smith

'Michael (Mike) E. Brown' (born June 5, 1965) has been a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) since 2003. He was previously an associate professor at Caltech from 2002-2003 and an assistant professor at Caltech from 1997–2002.^[1]

Contents

Education

Discoveries

Honors and Awards

Students and Postdocs

Personal life

Footnotes

Affiliations

External links

Education

Brown is a Huntsville, Alabama native and graduated from Virgil Grissom High School in 1983. Brown earned his A.B. in physics from Princeton University in 1987. He did his graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley where he earned an M.Sc. in astronomy in 1990 and a Ph.D in astronomy in 1994.

Discoveries

Brown is well-known in the scientific community for his surveys for distant objects orbiting the Sun. His team has discovered many trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). Particularly notable are Eris, the first TNO discovered that is larger than Pluto, and is one of a number of dwarf planets in the Solar System; 90377 Sedna, a planetoid thought to be the first observed body belonging to the inner Öpik-Oort cloud; and 90482 Orcus.
Brown and his team also had been observing for approximately six months before its announced discovery by José Luis Ortiz Moreno and colleagues from the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain. Brown originally indicated his support for Ortiz's team being given credit for the discovery of . However, further investigation showed that a website containing archives of where Brown's team's telescopes had been pointed while tracking had been accessed eight times in the three days preceding Ortiz's announcement, by computers with IP addresses that were traced back to the website of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC, Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia), where Ortiz works, and to e-mail messages sent by Ortiz and his student. This was a week after Brown had published an abstract for an upcoming conference talk at which he had planned to announce the discovery of ; the abstract referred to by a code which was the same code used in the online telescope logs; and the Andalusia computers had accessed the logs containing that code directly, as would be the case after an Internet search, without going through the home page or other pages of the archives.^[2] When asked about this online activity, Ortiz responded with an email to Brown that ignored the question, and instead suggested Brown was at fault for "hiding objects" and that "the only reason why we are now exchanging e-mail is because you did not report your object."^[3] As Brown has pointed out, such an accusation contradicts the accepted scientific practice of analyzing one's research until one is satisfied that it is accurate, then submitting it to peer review prior to any public announcement. The director of the CSIC has also distanced himself from Ortiz, insisting that its researchers have "sole responsibility" for themselves.
Although the matter has not yet been settled as of September 2005, Brown has petitioned the International Astronomical Union to credit his team rather than Ortiz as the discoverers of . At least one authority within the IAU has suggested that Brown's team will indeed end up being recognized as the discoverers.
Brown is also responsible for the discovery of Eris and Dysnomia (of which he and his team give their informal names Xena and Gabrielle, respectively, after the two main characters of '').

Honors and Awards

Brown was named one of Time's 100 Influential People of 2006. ^[4] In 2007, he received Caltech's annual Feynman Prize for teaching, which is Caltech's most prestigious teaching honor.

Students and Postdocs

Michael Brown's former graduate students and postdocs include astrophysicists Jean-Luc Margot, Chad Trujillo, and Marc Kuchner.

Personal life

Brown married Diane Binney on March 1, 2003.^[5] They have one daughter, Lilah Binney Brown, born July 7, 2005.^[6]

Footnotes

1. Curriculum vitae
2. The electronic trail
3.
One Find, Two Astronomers: An Ethical Brawl Dennis Overbye
4. Mike Brown: Pluto's Worst Nightmare Michael D. Lemonick
5. Mike and Diane's Fabulous Wedding Web Page
6. Lilah Binney Brown


★ The Tenth Planet Alex Wilkinson

Affiliations

Michael E. Brown is an Alliance Member of the Meade 4M Community who applauds his efforts to inform the public about the solar system.

External links

★ Brown's homepage